On Wed, 19 Oct 2011 16:24:30 -0400, Jack wrote:

On 10/19/2011 10:29 AM, wrote:
On Monday, October 17, 2011 11:45:59 PM UTC-4, Jack wrote:

It was next to impossible to buy a copy of OS/2.

I bought several copies at the Electronics Boutique store in the local mall. It was not at all difficult to obtain.

Most every PC was sold
with DOS/WIN installed.

So what? Anybody who wanted something else just had to buy it and install it, same as today.

Worse, the retailers rarely had
copies of OS/2 to sell, either because IBM didn't provide them copies,
or, because again, fear of MS punishing anyone that sold something other
than MS OS.

Electronics Boutique was a retailer. And they were not the only one that had OS/2 on the shelf.

Egghead also said they sold OS/2 but they never had it on the shelf. I
never heard of Electronics Boutique, but I believe you.

EB was a chain similar to GameStop (a store in every mall). So similar that
GameStop bought the competition.

IBM wanted MS to develop a system that they could use for their ATM
machines, and DOS/WIN was crap (still is) MS either was too dumb (my
guess) or had some other lame reason to not be able to deliver. (I
recall it said that MS told IBM it was not possible) IBM then did it
themselves in about a year, and it was awesome. IBM killed it's
development when it was selling a million copies a month despite their
lack of support. My opinion is they never wanted that part of the
market because of the "pins and needles" mentioned above. At the time,
there was an obvious, and uncomfortable disconnect between IBM OS/2 team
and the rest of the company. It became clear IBM had no intention of
moving in on MS, why is open for speculation.

If you think that IBM needed Microsoft to develop an OS for them you're clueless.

Nothing I said should give you that idea. IBM contracted with Gates for
the DT/PC OS. They could have written it themselves with no problem.

Actually, the couldn't. It would have cost *far* too much.

Why they contracted with Gates is pure speculation, but NEVER did I
say it was because IBM couldn't do it themselves. My GUESS is IBM
didn't think the PC market would do anything, and if it did, they didn't
want another anti-trust suit, so they contracted with a dip**** they
thought they could control.

For the anticipated 25K units? No, the reason they didn't write it themselves
is that it would have cost 100x too much. The PC was a "skunkworks" project,
flying under the RADAR of the monster. The whole design team was only a few
people.

IBM wanted Gates to develop OS/2 so they could use it as the OS for ATM
machines, which had to be stable, unlike DOS/WIN. When Gates couldn't
deliver after years of trying, IBM did it themselves in less than a
year, after Gates said it was impossible to do what IBM wanted.

ATMs were *one* application for OS/2. There were *many* others.

Now, I think between MS, IBM and INTEL, they have a cartel and it will
take an act of god to get them to do more than rip everyone off.

They "have" a cartel? IBM isn't even in that business anymore. BTW, Intel
and MS hate each other.

IBM was shipping 32-bit preemptively multitasking protected virtual operating systems when
Bill Gates was still in high school.

Doesn't change the fact they contracted with Gates to provide an OS for
their PC. Gates didn't even HAVE one at the time. IBM could have gone
to Patterson themselves and bought the OS instead of Gates. I don't
know why they didn't, but the most likely story I heard was Gates mother
was in with some IBM big cheese.

I've never heard that story and I worked for the beast. Any citations?

Microsoft bailed on OS/2 because Windows was making much more money for them, pure and simple.

MS never could get OS/2 to work. IBM took the project off of MS when
they failed to deliver. IBM dropped OS/2 when it started to threaten MS
corner on the DT/PC OS market. Why they did this is speculative, my
feeling is the anti-trust thing, combined with the cozy cartel
IBM/MS/INTEL has going for them.

Baloney. IBM withdrew it when it was clear there was no money to be had.
There was no money to be had because they didn't want to spend the $200M
needed to market it. IBM was in tough shape in the early '90s, borrowing
money to pay dividends.

And if IBM was selling a million copies a month then it must have been more available
than you claim.

All I know is you could not buy a PC at any retail outlet (other than
possibly IBM, not sure about that) with OS/2 installed.

There were retail outlets, both storefront and Internet, that sold PCs with
OS/2 installed. Dell, HP, and Gateway didn't, if that's what you mean.

None of the
retail stores around here sold OS/2, I know that because I had to get my
copies directly from IBM. The sales numbers were being reported by OS/2
user groups, I don't know where they got their numbers but I was
following them closely because I was keenly interested. IBM did little
to no retail marketing of OS/2, and most of the noise about it came from
delighted users, and the OS/2 user group. The user group got some, but
very little support from IBM. It was obvious to me that IBM was not
interested in competing with the company to which they bestowed the
DT/PC OS market. IMO, had they wanted to, they could have crushed Gates
and MS like a grape.

Wrong.